Torchlight 2 releasing September 20 with improved skill system

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Runic Games kicked off PAX 2012 in a big way by announcing a release date for Torchlight 2, their long awaited dungeon crawler sequel. The fans that have been begging, pleading, and endlessly tweeting the company for some hint of the game’s arrival can rest easy knowing that it will finally launch on September 20, just a couple of weeks from now.

Will it be worth the wait? I’ll have to get my hands on the final product before I can say for sure, but what I saw on the show floor at PAX last weekend was an even cleaner experience than the beta from a few months ago.

Runic has taken feedback from beta testers and made some really great changes to the Torchlight 2 experience, the most important of which is a revamped skill system. Beta players didn’t understand the benefit to putting more points into an existing skill, rather than unlocking a new one. So Runic created “tier bonuses” for each ability that unlocks at 5, 10, and 15 points. Each tier bonus adds a unique property to the skill that makes it noticeably more effective.

The developers also completely revamped the skill menu, breaking it out of the traditional “tree” format and into a much cleaner, more understandable layout. All four character classes have three tracks of abilities that are separated into tabs on the skill page. Under each tab there are seven active skills along the top and three passive skills along the bottom, all arranged in reading order based on what level is needed to unlock them.

Players also asked for a better respec option on skill points. In the beta, characters could only respec until they hit level 10, after which unlocking a new skill meant risking a hard-earned point. Runic compromised by adding a “last three points” respec that’s available at any level. It’s a nice way of encouraging players to experiment without giving them full reign to remake their character.

So what’s next for Torchlight 2 now that the developer’s finish line is in sight? The top priorities after launch are additional language packs, releasing the development tools to the community to encourage modding, and porting the game to Mac — not necessarily in that order.